Does Joe Biden Really Think He Can Succeed Obama?

The answer, judging from the image projected by the vice
president in an interview with historian Douglas
Brinkley in Rolling Stone, appears to be yes.

Brinkley writes:

It’s not far-fetched to think that Biden will run for president
in 2016 on Obama’s coattails. This notion surprises many
Republicans, who feel Obama is foundering and that Biden, who
will be 74 at the beginning of the next presidential term, is too
old. But Biden is smart to stay close to Obama, whose
public-approval rating hovers just below 50 percent (a number
that rises to around 75 percent among registered Democrats).
Assuming Hillary
Clinton runs for president in 2016, she will sell herself as
a successor to her husband, harkening back to the economic heyday
of the 1990s. By contrast, if Biden gets into the race, it will
be as an Obama Democrat promising to expand on the record of the
last two terms.

A handful of observations about a potential Clinton-Biden
rivalry:

1.)“Obama Democrat” and “Clinton
Democrat” are no longer mutually exclusive. Hillary
Clinton may come to personify the melding of the two political
brands. The 2012 campaign saw President Obama rely on Clinton’s
speechmaking and retail campaigning acumen to a far greater
extent than he did in ’08. The former president’s contribution to
Obama’s reelection was second in significance only to Obama’s
efforts on his own behalf. In his stemwinder at the Democratic
National Convention—an address that was emotionally and
substantively superior to Obama’s acceptance speech—Bill Clinton
entwined his legacy with that of Obama’s. In the event that both
Biden and Clinton run in ’16, Hillary would in effect be able to
run as a successor to both men.

2.) ”Experience.” In
2008, Hillary ran on the experience issue and failed miserably.
She lost to a junior senator who had yet to complete his first
term; the appeal to her service as first lady was laughed out of
town. But let’s imagine, for our purposes, that 2016 won’t be a
repeat of the novelty act that ’08 was. On foreign policy, in
particular, Hillary lacked relevant credentials. This was the one
issue portfolio where then-Sen. Biden could plausibly claim the
upper hand. Hillary’s stint as secretary of state erases that
gap.

3.)Benghazi. If, two to three
years from now, the Benghazi issue still hovers over Hillary
(which I doubt, but let’s say it will for argument’s sake), Biden
will hardly be free of its taint. He brags to Brinkley of his
tight relationship to Obama: “Think about it: Even our critics
have never said that when I speak, no one doubts that I speak for
the president. I speak for the president because of the
relationship. And the only way that works is you’re around all
the time. Literally, ever meeting he has, I’m in. You don’t have
to wonder what the other guy’s thinking; I don’t have to guess
where the president’s going.” Recall, in this context, Obama’s
remark in the second presidential debate that Hillary “works for
me.” By extension, she worked for Biden. If Benghazi still smells
in ’16, the stuff will roll uphill from Foggy Bottom.

4.)Age and Sex. Hillary will
have one very big advantage over Biden (and other male
presidential aspirants) three years from now: She’s a woman.
Having checked first black president off the list, Democrats will
be eager to finally send a woman to the White House. And those
worried about Hillary’s age—she’ll be 69 on Election Day ’16—will
be able to favorably contrast her to Biden, who will be 74.

5.)Every waking moment of his life,
Joe
Biden exists on the knife’s edge of verbal
catastrophe.